Julian Leitloff has already successfully founded several companies, including the e-commerce company Stilnest. He has made it into Forbes’ 30 under 30 in Europe. Julian has also been travelling the Berlin blockchain scene for quite some time and now wants to take off with his blockchain service company Fractal Blockchain. The chances are more than good, as he is setting up the token launch for the renowned BigchainDB project Ocean Protocol. To learn more about his work and his views on the Blockchain ecosystem, we met Julian for an interview.

Julian, you’re co-founder and CEO of Fractal Blockchain. Your homepage doesn’t have that much information about you yet.

What services do you offer in the cryptosoft sector?

We support the token launch. Many cryptosoft projects reinvent the wheel like this https://www.geldplus.net/en/cryptosoft-review/ and become experts in international capital market regulation, but they should take much more care of their community and work on the protocol. A lot can go wrong with the token launch, you shouldn’t do it all yourself. With Fractal, we take over this process from onboarding to settlement.

Now you’re doing the token launch for the Ocean Protocol, an offshoot of BigchainDB (here’s the interview with CEO Bruce Pon on the Ocean Protocol). How does such a token launch actually work, in which phase are you at the moment?

This is a mammoth project, especially for such a renowned project as Ocean. Basically there are four strands: the technical side of the protocol, all the legal contracts, the launch software and the development of the community. Of course, this all happens in parallel – a blatant challenge for the team. We are now through with the pre-launch, which was extremely successful. We’ve done quite a bit on our side, we’ve got everything ready for the actual launch of the network. For the team the real work begins now, namely to build the protocol.

What are the biggest challenges for crypto trader?

Getting the many different crypto trader together at one table according to onlinebetrug. Communication is a special challenge because it has to fit technically and legally and then inspire the community. Some teams underestimate the challenge of a token launch enormously. If we can’t communicate that, we’ll cancel it, because then it won’t work. There has to be an insight that you can’t be an expert in everything and then bring in experts for exactly these points.

How closely do you work with lawyers so that everything you program is legally compliant?

In the USA, legal texts are also referred to as ‘legal codes’ and that sums up our understanding well: Law and software must be created closely together in order to write not only legally sound, but also beautiful software that people want to use. If the legal is ‘clapped over’ afterwards, then it looks the same. We have in-house lawyers on a permanent basis and then we have several external law firms that support and audit us.

The criminal side of the crypto world could soon develop a new scam. Instead of “just” mining crypto currencies without the computer owner’s knowledge and computing power, mining malware could also be used to steal sensitive data. For example, cyber criminals could hack into corporate secrets and bank accounts. This was the finding of a security researcher at the InfoSecurity North America Conference in New York City.

Crypto-jacking has unfortunately been a familiar word in the world of Bitcoin & Co. for a long time. In fact, the number of infections with mining malware has risen by 83 percent this year. As crypto courses are still on a downward trend, cyber criminals could soon add a new “business field” to mining with external computing services: the theft of data.

When the hacker becomes the news spy

Troy Kent, a researcher at the news spy Awake Security, a network security company, presented his findings at the InfoSecurity North America Conference in New York City. According to CNBC, Kent had researched what other illegal possibilities could be derived from the use of mining malware. With this knowledge he wants to warn companies in time so that they can take appropriate security measures early enough. Kent explained his research findings to CNBC: https://www.geldplus.net/en/the-news-spy-review/

“In this attack, people use a tool, a crypto-miner, that they normally see in their network. But they’re not used to reacting as if it were a legitimate threat like a botnet or a Trojan. They can come in and steal files, they can steal intellectual property, steal credentials and then possibly log in as CEO. Or they can download more software. They can shut down services.”

It is not yet known whether this Bitcoin secret method is already in use

However, Kent is sure that if he has managed to do so, other reasonably technically savvy Bitcoin secret mining software could also be used to steal data. He sees the greatest danger in the Bitcoin secret that the method is very difficult to uncover. Therefore, most companies would notice such an attack far too late. Accordingly, they should particularly invest in advanced detection methods based on behavior and analysis. In fact, not a surprising verdict from an employee of a cybersecurity company.

HOME CRYPTO BITCOIN THESE MAJOR BANKS WELCOME BITCOIN AND THE BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
Bitcoin and the technology behind it, the Blockchain, have already managed to twist the heads of many people in their short lifespan. However, many of them have taken a very long time to realize the true potential of innovation.

Initially, the big banks understandably rebelled against the digital currency and publicly expressed their scepticism because of fears that Bitcoin could damage the traditional financial system. The slowly emerging interest of the banks is also less dedicated to Bitcoin as a currency than to technology as a closed database system. Some banks have already set up their own laboratories to carry out various tests with the blockchain and other decentralised cash books.

It is already clear that some of the largest banks are showing great interest in Bitcoin secret

Here are the seven largest institutions that have publicly announced their interest in Bitcoin secret: 1st BNP Paribas. According to the International Business Times, the French BNP Paribas Bank is currently working on plans to integrate Bitcoin secret into one of its monetary funds.

Prior to this, analyst Johann Palychata has already written an article in the internal bank manager about whether the block chain will disrupt or revolutionise world trade.

2nd Société Générale (SocGen)
Another French bank is currently publicly looking for a Bitcoin-focused developer. Société Générale (SocGen) published a job advertisement for an “IT developer for Bitcoin, blockchains and crypto currencies” on July 2nd.

Even though the ad does not reveal much information about the actual goal of the job, it can be assumed that the bank is looking for its own in-house solution.

3rd Citi Bank
CitiBank

The first time we heard about Citi Bank in connection with Bitcoin and the Blockchain was when Citi advised the UK government to consider creating its own digital currency.

Ken Moore, head of Citi Innovation Labs, later told the International Busiess Times in an interview that the world’s eight largest bank had been monitoring and investigating the technology behind Bitcoin for several years.

Moore also said that the bank had already created three blockchains of its own in a closed system and is currently testing its Citicoin.

At the Consensus CoinDesk conference in New York in September, Citi Bank plans to announce more details on its plans for digital currencies.

4TH UBS
The Swiss UBS Bank had already publicly announced at the beginning of the event that it had opened a test laboratory for digital currencies in London.

According to the bank, it has now learned a lot and is in a position to plug a few holes between the banking system and FinTech. UBS continues to research how innovation can drive the traditional banking system forward in the future.

Oliver Bussmann CIO at UBS said about cryptosoft:

“Our Innovation Lab provides us with a unique cryptosoft platform to examine emerging technologies such as blockchain and digital currencies in detail and to assess their potential and impact on the cryptosoft industry”.

5 Barclays
barclays bank

Only last month the British bank Barclays published its plans for various tests with the Bitcoin technology.

As previously reported, Bank v signed a partnership with the Swedish Bitcoin exchange Safello. The aim of the partnership is to find out how the blockchain technology can strengthen the financial sector.

Barclays has supported cryptographic companies in the past. In March of this year, the bank included three startups in its support programme that deal with Blockchain technology.

Only one month later, Usama Fayyad of Barclays Bank publicly praised the Blockchain technology and referred to the “transformative” potential during the SWIFT Business Forum in London.

He said:

“Behind Bitcoin is the blockchain and I think this technology will change a lot.”

6th Goldman Sachs
Last year Goldman Sachs published a report on digital currencies and the potential of blockchain technology.

Although the first report did not go further into Bitcoin’s idea of currency and described the crypto currency as a commodity, a new report by the company describes Bitcoin as a “megatrend” that could forever change the aging remittance system.

HOME PAGE THANKS TO OCEAN FOR DATA OWNERSHIP – BIGCHAINDB-INTERVIEW PART 2
In the first part of our interview Bruce Pon told the story of BigChainDB and the Ocean Protocol. In the second part Ocean Protocol will be discussed in more detail. We will talk about the role of data in AI and the token sale.

The roots of artificial intelligence research lie in the middle of the last century. The concepts of that time could only be implemented 50 years later with the advent of the Bitcoin revolution, because now there was access to the vast amount of Bitcoin revolution data.

The data available on the Internet is often available in unstructured form. We therefore had to look at this data from a new perspective and needed new databases. Conversely, the development of non-relational databases such as MongoDB led us to look at existing data from a new perspective and to re-examine it against questions that could not be articulated in relational databases.

This in turn advanced the use of AI. The use of old algorithms to classify these data increased the prediction accuracy from 80% to 99%. Even with different models, the same results were obtained and it was seen that the algorithms themselves were not as relevant as the database that was the basis for the data analyses.

When you realize that it’s the data itself that determines the quality of statements, you can understand why Google and other companies are so fond of our data. But it’s not just Google, Facebook and others that use our data on a large scale: MasterCard now knows more about a country’s economy than the country itself.

What if the data these giants access were to suddenly become open source? That would mean huge empowerment for everyone. That’s exactly the goal of Ocean Protocol: First, everyone should have access to all shared data. Second, everyone should be perceived as a data provider and paid for shared data. The sovereignty over the data is to be restored and the individual is to be master of his privacy again.

In order to draw a bow to artificial intelligence: data provenance, i.e. the origin of the data, is important for good artificial intelligence. The closer it is to the object under investigation, the higher the security of the models.

If we shift this data provenance to the Bitcoin loophole, this also gains power

With a price on this data, the owners of the Bitcoin loophole could get money without a job. With the advent of artificial intelligence, many professions are being replaced. What are we doing with this coming wave of unemployed, which does not only include Bitcoin loophole?

Which must be clear to us: Our power grid is already controlled by artificial intelligence – if you consider the problems of a fluctuating, decentralized power supply, especially in the context of the energy revolution, this is a challenge that no human being can face. So we have already put electricity in the hands of AI – and things are going well here in Germany!

You mentioned that those who provide data should be paid for it. How are the associated rewards distributed? Does the on-chain happen?

Of the Ocean Token generated, 55% is distributed to investors, the founding team and cooperating companies. 45% will be used for a Block Reward. This will be distributed to Miner, which ultimately also processes data. However, a large proportion goes to all nodes that feed data into the system.

Especially for data for which no price has been charged so far, this is intended to create an incentive to disclose the same. Data validation and other services also receive part of the block reward. So people can also buy algorithms with which they can look more closely at their own data.
The market price of these data should be subject to the laws of the market.

I understand that the Ocean Protocol gives power back to the individual: Anyone can build such a node, share their data and receive their share of the block rewards. But what could be a problem is the prevention of spam. Many systems solve this through initial investments that make pure spam intentions economically unattractive. However, this leads to the dilemma that while spam is prevented by high barriers, this excludes the small man. How does Ocean solve this problem?

BTC-ECHO was at the Blockchain Day on September 5th at the event “Digital Energy World 2017” of Solarpraxis in the premises of Vattenfall Europe in Berlin. In addition to our role as observers of the German blockchain scene, BTC-ECHO was also actively involved in shaping the day. Editor-in-chief Sven Wagenknecht moderated a panel discussion on the topic “Blockchain currencies in the energy industry”.

The Blockchain Day is the kick-off event of the two-day Solarpraxis conference “Digital Energy World”. The day was dedicated to discussion and the exchange of expertise. Speakers and guests from the two areas blockchain and energy industry were present in order to get in contact with each other, to exchange their experiences and to identify overlaps of their topics. The overriding question was:

How can Blockchain technology contribute to the Bitcoin loophole?

The first thematic block of the Bitcoin loophole followed the very general question: Bitcoin Loophole Review 2018 » Full Scam Check Has Blockchain arrived in the energy world? After the introductory welcoming words by Tina Barroso, the authorized signatory of Solarpraxis, who led through the day, Karl-Heinz Remmers (also from Solarpraxis), Kilian Leykam (Vattenfall Innovation), Tobias Federico (Energy Brainpool) and Florian Reetz (Stiftung Neue Verantwortung) spoke. Remmers stressed the need for further digitisation of the energy industry, especially with a view to a rapid transition to renewable energies. He sees a great advantage in the decentralization of the blockchain and considers it possible to create a completely new energy infrastructure and thus bring about a system change.

Kilian Leykam also took up this idea and described the blockchain as the ideal framework for Vattenfall’s goal of organizing the energy market in a completely renewable and decentralized way. Tobias Federico warned against understanding the blockchain as a panacea, since it and its possible applications are only a technical instrument that must always be seen in the context of an overall concept. In addition, he considered the phase of the hype around the blockchain to be over and believes that the effective integration of meaningful blockchain applications will now be more important. Fabian Reetz saw several application examples of blockchain technology in the energy sector to create an energy market design that is 100% renewable and digital. He also emphasized participation as an important element of the energy turnaround, which is a very politically charged issue.

Has the blockchain already arrived in the news spy?

The second thematic block focused on the news spy of law and security on the blockchain. Dr. Christian Berghoff and Dr. Ute Gebhardt from the German Federal Office for Information Security, Dr. Nina Siedler from DWF Germany Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft and Dr. Dörte Fouquet from Becker Büttner Held were invited to give impulse lectures on the legal framework for blockchain applications, in particular the news spy crypto currencies. Christian Berghoff looked at the blockchain from the point of view of the BSI and considered the confidentiality of public blockchains, one of the protection goals of IT security, to be problematic, since transparency is one of the cornerstones of the blockchain and there is no access restriction. Nina Siedler focused on the problem of different jurisdictions in the regulation of blockchain applications and the contradiction between smart contracts and legally binding contracts in Germany. Dörte Fouquet finally raised the issue of the blockchain to the European level. Especially in the European Parliament, considerable progress in the implementation of blockchain-based solutions could be noticed.

Following the keynote speeches, the audience was invited to join a table discussion in the format of a World Café, led by the three speakers mentioned above. The results of the resulting stimulated discussions were then compiled in the panel by the three discussion leaders – accompanied and chaired by panel moderator Sven Wagenknecht (BTC-ECHO) and expert Friederike Ernst from the Blockchain-Bundesverband.

During the third thematic block “Business Models along the Blockchain” several speakers presented their ideas for Blockchain applications based on Blockchain, among them Ewand Hesse (Energy Web Foundation), Stefan Thon (Strom DAO), Rex Kempcke (Ponton), Friederike Ernst (Gnosis) and Sebnem Rusitschka (freel.io).

Edan Yago is CEO of Epiphyte, a company that enables financial institutions to list transactions on the open blockchain. He is also a founding member of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority (DATA). In this guest commentary, Yago discusses the crisis of the DAO and how the future of the blockchain platform Ethereum will develop, depending on the decision of the community.

On 8 July 2011 the first Bitcoin bubble burst

A drop in value of 94% caused the price to drop from 31 US-$ to 2 US-$.

As everyone has noticed, Bitcoin has recovered splendidly since then. But now Ethereum is in a crisis. The DAO has been hacked, destroyed and most of the assets have been stolen. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum can recover – but a panic reaction could destroy the platform forever.

Unfortunately, we are moving more and more in the direction of this panic reaction.

Ethereum has for a certain reason such a value, and for that reason only – it is a Turing complete, smart contract protocol. In other words, the value of ether is a direct result of Smart Contracts and Ethereum’s position as the first protocol for such applications.

On June 17, The DAO was attacked as Smart Contract on Ethereum. Now we have to decide which of the two ways to go: We can learn from this lesson and develop better Smart Contracts in the future, or turn back the faulty Smart Contract and pull the floor under Ethereum’s feet forever.

We are dealing here with something much bigger than The DAO, or Ethereum: the idea of unchanging Smart Contracts.

The basic idea of Smart Contracts was brilliantly explained by the DAO. Made them to “go ahead with iron will and unstoppable code”. The basic idea is that the code is the contract and that no human intervention or interpretation is required.

It is automatic and “autonomous”

Deterministic results based on code – hence the value.

The value is 100% dependent on the possibility of running Smart Contracts on a protocol that is trusted and works according to deterministic rules. These rules are known before and make the work with them interesting. This is how Ethereum should be. What is now proposed, however, is that the rules should be changed retroactively at protocol level, since an exploit has been found in a contract at application level.

If you do that, you would destroy all trust, which made all contracts at the application level possible.